Vision
I think it is possible that in retrospect we will see the current OS ecosystem as unstable. That it would only take one manufacturer deciding to really go all in on features that helped reduce addiction in order for the equilibrium of the whole industry to change. We have a Yellowstone without wolves. To bring balance to the ecosystem, we will want someone in the social media creation and delivery pipeline who is actively looking out for users, primarily trying to help people skillfully interface with information streams. Here is one potential path from that intuition to a future in which that's already happened.
First UI Idea
An initial UI intuition: grayscale screens are boring, but actually make the internet less beautiful. Have the idea to implement an appearance which gradually increases grayscale as you use your phone for longer. Initial attempts reveal that Android won’t allow it.
Survey of Existing Solutions
Every self-control app tested — Freedom, Forest, screen time trackers. None work well. The framing is wrong: they treat users as enemies of themselves rather than people missing better tools.
Begin Public Brainstorms
Small Google Meets with friends. The idea stops being a private intuition and becomes something other people have heard of.
View and contribute to the brainstorm board →Initial Experiments
A heavy 3D-printed phone case. A Chrome extension that applies live visual transformations to social media feeds.
Android OS Experiments
Initial Android OS experiments, pushing on how far we can go with Android-approved interventions or with actually changing the operating system at a deeper level. A physical device you can put a SIM card into, which may not be available for mass purchase, but which consistently and predictably reduces screen time in people who would like that outcome.
The Purchasable Device
A phone that costs more than an iPhone — justified not by specs but by value. Gives you hours back. Two potential value adds: negative agency (a bouncer, filtering so you see what you want) and positive agency (an assistant, surfacing what’s actually relevant to your life).
Early Adopters & Evidence
A small fleet of devices. Real usage data. A/B experiments producing numbers that make the case to someone other than the already-convinced.
Funding & Team
The argument lands. A technical co-founder. Institutional backing. The project stops being a solo endeavor.
The Cascade
One manufacturer ships with care built in by default — not as an opt-in wellness app, but structurally, the way encryption is now. The others have to follow or explain why they won’t. The tacit agreement to not try breaks down.